In many ways, the malware landscape has remained business as usual, with new attacks taking an evolutionary rather then revolutionary turn.
“I don’t think that radical changes in the threat landscape happen that often,” Nick Levay, chief security officer for Bit9, told IFSEC Global in a recent conversation.”We’ve seen more espionage in cyberspace, though, and we continue to see more focus where actors are compromising individuals rather than technologies.”
In the fist half of the year, though, financial services and utility companies were tested, a trend that will continue. More than one third of all breaches affected financial organizations, according to the 2013 Data Breach Investigation Report from Verizon.
Attacks of all types are on the rise. There’s more cyber espionage and more corporate hacking, said Levay. Smaller organizations are being used as stepping stones to get to their larger and more influential partners.
At the same time, there is a higher level of sophistication in finding and stopping these nefarious actors. “There will be a lot more effort in prosecuting or attempting to prosecute espionage cases,” he added.
He points to a recent court case example of American Superconductor vs. Sinovel. Although not a cyber espionage case, the case entails an electronics component manufacturer suing its biggest customer for IP theft. “Depending on what happens, this may be cited as precedent in cyber cases,” said Levay. “Either way, one of the effects of these kinds of cases is that they will create a perception that there is more a risk of getting caught.”
These current realities point to a need for IT pros to stay alert and become more proactive. “As the enterprise gets good at protecting against one thing, the threats change to other things,” said Levay. “The trick for the security professional is to be on their toes and predict the changes in tactics that the adversaries will conduct.”
Going forward, organizations will need to focus on increased visibility into their networks and systems. “You cannot fight what you cannot see, so there’s going to be more investments in solutions that offer a real-time view into what’s going on both in the network and at the endpoint,” said Levay.
Let us know the biggest IT security trends you’ve seen. Then, get out your crystal ball and let us know what you think might be on the horizon.
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